Goldsmith calls for inquiry into Iraq torture

The outgoing attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, called yesterday for an investigation into how illegal torture techniques came to be used by British soldiers in Iraq. He said it was a matter of grave concern that techniques such as sleep deprivation, hooding and stress positions were deployed against suspects held by UK forces.

He told MPs and peers in a hearing of the joint committee on human rights: "These techniques were outlawed on a cross-party basis in 1972. We have to seek why anyone thought these were permissible techniques. I think there needs to be an inquiry.

"I certainly agree that there is a matter of grave concern as to how these techniques came to be used, who authorised them and on what basis."

Lord Goldsmith told the parliamentary committee that he was only aware such interrogation techniques were being used after Baha Musa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist, died in British custody.

Mr Musa, 26, had been detained under suspicion of being an insurgent. He died in Basra in September 2003. Seven members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, which is now the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, faced the most expensive court martial in British history, but all were eventually acquitted.

One soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, 35, became the first British serviceman to admit a war crime, that of treating Iraqi prisoners inhumanely, and was jailed for a year.

Lord Goldsmith said army emails which emerged during evidence given to the court martial of soldiers ill-treating Mr Musa, which suggested that he had advised that the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights did not apply to civilian detainees, were "utterly confused".

Lord Goldsmith said it was "deeply troubling" that during the court martial evidence was given that these interrogation tools were approved at brigade level.

The army has been conducting a review under Brigadier Aitken since February 2005, to determine what lessons can be learned from recent courts martial. A full board of inquiry into how the forbidden interrogation techniques came to be used in Iraq may also be set up.

The director of the human rights group Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, said: "We are delighted that the attorney general has now seen the light about the need for a full public inquiry into how Baha Musa was tortured to death in British custody in Iraq."